Auguste RODIN - The Age of Brass - Autographed photograph.

Auguste Rodin (1840.1917)

Original autographed photograph.

Exceptional vintage photographic print depicting one of the sculptor's most famous works, produced at the dawn of his career: The Bronze Age .

Enriched in the left margin with a dedication by Rodin in black ink:

“Tribute to Mademoiselle Verdier. Aug. Rodin »

______________________________________________________________________

Size: 22 x 28 cm. Modern brown wooden frame, format 42 x 50 cm. Slight defect in lower left corner.

Rodin's first important work, produced in Brussels in 1877, this figure already shows all the mastery of the sculptor, his attention to living nature in attitude and modeling. A young Belgian soldier, Auguste Neyt, posed for this work stripped of any attribute allowing the subject to be identified. It was exhibited at the Cercle Artistique de Bruxelles in 1877, without title, then at the Salon in Paris, under the name L'Âge d'airain , where it caused a scandal.

Accused, during this Parisian exhibition, of having molded it directly on the model, Rodin had to prove that the quality of the modeling of his sculpture came from an in-depth study of the profiles and not from a molding in nature. His detractors eventually recognized the sculptor's good faith. This resounding scandal, however, brought attention to Rodin and earned him the commission for Hell's Gate in 1880.

The statue, also known as The Man Who Awakens or The Vanquished , evokes man from the earliest ages. She originally held a spear in her left hand, as shown in a photograph by Gaudenzio Marconi, but Rodin chose to remove it to free the arm of any attributes and give the gesture a new magnitude.

_____________________________________________________________________________